


Stuck Still, No Turning Back

by boopinbabbit



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Abelism, Child Neglect, Deaf Character, Disabled Character, Dissociation, Domestic Violence, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Second Person, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Racism, Sign Language, Tag Suggestions Welcome, cannon compliant racism, diverging from cannon in an effort to make the plot of this game a little more cohesive, filling in plot holes like i'm working for the bethesda branch of the DOT
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:28:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21625339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boopinbabbit/pseuds/boopinbabbit
Summary: Nora O'Hare might've survived the end of the world, but her hearing aids didn't (and neither did her husband but that's less important). Now she's gotta navigate this new post post-apocalyptic landscape where everything is trying to kill her with only four senses and a baseball bat full of spikes. Luckily there are enough people wanting her to solve all their problems to keep her from having to focus on any of her own. The more things change and all that.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Kudos: 11





	1. cause the loneliest number is the number one

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is written in the second person for two reasons: one, because it helps to highlight Nora's emotional and mental state where she feels like somebody else is always dictating her life and choices; and two, because my homestuck loving ass was halfway through the first chapter before I realized what I was doing and by that time I was feeling the vibe too much to stop. i might go back and change this later depending, who knows. definitely not me.

Your name is Yeung Nyua, or it was before your husband made you change it Nora O’Hare. The date is October 25, 2077. Wait, no. The date is October 25, 2277. The current president is…

There is no president anymore. Or maybe that bastard managed to freeze himself too somehow and has been hiding out in a bunker somewhere waiting for civilization to re-establish itself.

From what you’ve seen so far, he’s going to have awhile yet.

But then, you haven’t ventured out more than a few blocks from your home. What’s left of it, that is. You stare down at your hands, blistered and broken from clawing yourself out of the cold, cold, cold…

“Stop,” you order, throat scraping with disuse. The dog looks up from where he lays across the room, and you shake your head, signing, “<Not you>.” at him. He seems to understand, and goes back to his nap letting you know that you weren’t too loud, which is good because the last thing you need is to alert the many things in this hell that want you dead.

“Stop,” you repeat to yourself, silently this time. It’s not like there is anyone here who would need to hear you, besides the dog who is picking up sign language faster than any human in your life had ever bothered to. And even if there were, you’ve been told your English is barely understandable, especially when you mumble like that, God, can’t you speak up, you-

With a snap of your fingers, the dog perks up, and a crook of your wrist calls him over to lay his head in your lap. You’ve only known this dog for a few hours, but you swear if anything were to happen to him you’d kill anything involved and then yourself. He is the only thing keeping you going right now.

\------

You burn the body of the man whom you assume to be the dog’s owner. It’s both easier and safer than burying him would be given the number of zombies you have seen roaming the forests around you. The fire doesn’t draw more than a few of those terrifyingly large mosquitos and you beat them back easily with a rusty shock baton you found crawling through the vault.

There had been a small handgun too, but you’re afraid to use it. It feels like it would be too loud, and bullets are limited. The baton at least doesn’t need to be reloaded by unsteady hands in the middle of battle, though you hate its severe lack of reach.

Thankfully, you haven’t really had to leave the wreckage of Sanctuary Hills too often. A few of the houses held up well enough over the years that it only takes a bit of elbow grease to scrape together a nice enough shelter. The Allen family down the street had a water filter in their basement which along with good old fashioned boiling helps cut down on the radiation poisoning from the creek. And three days of starvation get you over that silly problem you had with eating your kills, so all in all things are not so bad.

Or not so bad as they could be at least. Sometimes, you even think this might be better than what you had before.

You’re not entirely sure how you feel about that though.

\----------

A month passes before you’re willing to travel further than the old Red Rocket where you’d found the dog. The robot bugs and pesters and threatens to go out himself to find the child if you won’t, and you almost let it. Even without your hearing aids, you still have to put up with its constant stream of words in the form of the text screen your husband had installed when he realized you were taking them out in order to ignore the robot. You didn’t need to understand the damn thing for it to spy on you.

But of course, you couldn’t say that. And now, here you are, 200 fucking years later and still having to deal with the proof that your husband didn’t trust you.

“<Follow,>” you sign to the dog, and he heels to your side like you had trained him to. You wish the robot were half as easy to make listen. It’s useful in a fight at least, and so long as you keep it on your side it might not murder you in your sleep.

“I’m sure the monsters who have taken Master Shaun could not have gotten very far,” the robot tells you, spinning around as it surveys your surroundings. “We’ll most certainly be able to head them off at Concord and get your son back, mum.”

“<Don’t call me that,>” you order, but of course, the robot ignores you. Your husband’s command outweighs your own, even after his death. “<After this, I’m going back, you can keep looking for the child on your own.>”

It ignores you. You continue to not be surprised.

\---------

The people who try and kill you in Concord are called “raiders”. This is what the black man in the cowboy hat tries to tell you when you finally stumble into the room containing what remains of a group apparently called The Minutemen. You feel like you have stepped into one of those old western movies your husband liked to watch when he was coming down from a high.

Only the old woman knows sign language. She claims she learned it because she had a vision of needing it. Something about her makes you want to run away, but the big white man in the overalls scares you and besides, you can’t just let the “raiders” kill these people.

Though, you almost consider it when they show you the Power Armour.

\---------

The giant terrifying hell beast they aptly call a “deathclaw” nearly finishes what the war started, but the angry looking Asian woman stabs a stimpack into you. The clunky Power Armour gets you back to the Red Rocket where you try to give it back to the big white man so he and his group can head on their way.

Unfortunately, their way seems to be following you into Sanctuary Hills like a bunch of stupid ducklings imprinting on the first person to help them through a tough situation. These idiots don’t even know you! No wonder their Minutemen were wiped out so easily!

Three days later, the black man names you their leader, and you’re not sure who wants to kill him more, you or the other Asian lady.


	2. the blood of your enemies makes for good moisturizer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora learns how to fight, but more importantly she learns how to kill. Preston is both intrigued and mildly horrified.

From the ashes of your old community, a new settlement is born. Five able bodied people and one robot make short work of cleaning up and sorting out all the material at hand. The prefab houses have outlived your expectations at surviving the year let alone having a bomb dropped on them and there is plenty of salvage to work with. Within a week, the place is looking better than you could have ever accomplished on your own, and by the end of another month the Longs have an actual garden growing right in the middle of it.

“<Couple of brahmin, a few chickens, and we’ll have a real farm going,>” Jun Long tells you proudly. Everyone else nods there agreement, because once everyone else had learned you were deaf they’d all gone out of their way to learn sign from yourself and Mama Murphey. You remember bursting into actual tears the first time Preston Garvey had slowly finger-spelled out a request for back-up. It probably hadn’t inspired much confidence on his end, but he hadn’t put you down over it. Just sat down next to you and waited it out.

You’d agreed, of course, because these people had already done so much more for you than needed. And sure, it was probably because you had saved their lives, but that didn’t mean they had to stick around through your bad moods and distrust. They didn’t need to learn your language, or ask how you were doing, or trust you to be capable of doing more than sitting beside your husband looking like a pretty and silent doll. None of them cared about your small eyes, or big nose, or how dark your patchy colored skin was. The being fat thing had thrown them off for a little bit, but you learned quickly that it was because truly fat people were extremely rare in the Commonwealth, even among Vault Dwellers such as yourself.

<”I’m not a very good fighter,”> you tell him, and he offers to help you learn.

\----------

Loading and reloading pistols, taking weapons apart to put them back together, figuring out how to build complicated machinery out of scrap junk. These things become easier with time and practice. Hitting still targets sitting barely a yard away from you? Not so much as it seems.

<”Maybe stick to melee,”> Sturges suggests, not unkindly, gently taking the gun out of your hand the fifth time your shot goes completely awry. Stuffing your shaking hands into the pocket-holes of your re-tailored vault-suit dress, you pull out the baton strapped to your thigh, and he nods. <”Come on, I’ll show you how to upgrade it.”>

A few hours later, you leave town alongside Preston carrying what is basically a heavy metal baseball bat with spikes through it. It can electrocute people on contact. You probably shouldn’t be as excited about that fact as you are, but you can’t help it. It’s really freaking cool.

Everything else is….not so much.

It’s not paranoia if everything is really out to kill you becomes the mantra of your new life the third time a giant bug nearly gets the drop on you. Your shrieking only alerts more of them, and you want to cry when Preston gently suggests better volume control. But not as much as you want to cry when any of your attackers lands a hit. Becoming quieter is easy, becoming thicker skinned will take time. For now, all you can do is keep a better watch out and not let anything survive long enough to really hurt you.

It gets easier with time. Having Preston along helps. Hell, having the dog along helps. Their presence is a blessing of cover fire and comforting contact that gets you all the way to the endangered settlement and into the raider’s den waiting for you there.

\---------

Fighting people is still harder than fighting bugs, especially people with guns, explosives, and other nasty surprises waiting to take you unawares at a moment’s notice. Your choice of weapon does not allow for distance, and you regret that almost immediately as you find yourself cornered almost immediately.

There’s a gun pressed into your stomach and the man leaning into you is slurring words you’re suddenly thankful not to be able to hear. He’ll shoot you if you move, but you also know he’ll do worse if you don’t.

The look of pure shock on his face when you knee him hard in the crotch is almost worth the bullet to the gut. The warm spray of blood when you bash his skull in makes you wretch, and it’s all you can do to keep your feet under you long enough to fish out a stimpack.

The needle goes into your thigh, and your bat goes into the unprotected chest of another raider. Wrenching the nails out of flesh and fabric proves harder than you’d think and when you go to swing for another blow, the raider goes with you, bashing into one of his fellows as the momentum finally rips your weapon out of him.

Covered head-to-toe in blood and other unmentionables, you must be a pretty gruesome sight for Preston, who takes one look at you and seems as though he also wants to hurl.

“<Solidarity, my friend,>” you tell him, shuddering. “<I’m going to take the longest bath soon as possible.>”

Your stomach still aches, and your head is buzzing, but all in all you’d have to consider this a job well done. Right after you throw up, that is.


End file.
